Code of Practice: Prevention, recognition and management of pain in laboratory animals
The fundamental principle of European and Dutch legislation on the use of laboratory animals is that no animal should suffer unnecessarily. Although previous research indicates that there are no major and imminent concerns regarding the recognition and management of pain in laboratory animals, there is always room for improvement. In March 2015, the then State Secretary of Economic Affairs asked the NCad to provide advice on the procedures and implementation of best practices that can help researchers and Animal Welfare Bodies to recognise and manage pain in the laboratory, depending on the species involved and the nature of the animal experiment in question.
We issued our opinion in 2016. The core of the opinion is the Code of Practice (CoP) entitled ‘Preventing, recognising and management of pain in laboratory animals’. For an optimal implementation of the CoP, a number of supporting measures were suggested, including:
- Make the CoP part of the ‘Culture of Care’ within institutions
- Align existing best practices for welfare monitoring with the CoP
- Keep the CoP up to date with the latest insights
- Introduce the CoP in European discussions
- Use the CoP as a basis for a wider internationally applicable procedure.
A summary of the CoP can be found in the infographic below.
